ZalthoLIVE - Claude AnShin Thomas Zaltho Foundation

These are questions and topics that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - reflects on. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
This episode was recorded during a weekly zoom session of questions&responses.
For more information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask Claude AnShin Thomas a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on these topics? Book recommendations: 
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/our-books.html

Questions and their time stamps:
1:10 If daily life and meditation are not two separate things, should we aim at keeping breath awareness as long as we are awake?
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1:25 In my relationship, especially with cats, I realize that loving them comes with some attachment. How is it in practice that non-attachment doesn’t mean not to love?
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3: 34 Would you say that as humans most of our problems are created by ourselves, for example through our attitude or our behavior?
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3:53 Do you have any recommendations for work when one is working with people with different cultural backgrounds?
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6:55 Would you expand on a quote I read?  “When the mind appears reality disappears and when the mind disappears reality appears."
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7:14 Is suicide ever a solution?
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7:55 You mentioned that my conditioning is being reflected back to me by my world. Do you have an example of this?
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8:36 Earlier in this session you said that expecting love to be reciprocated is to ignore the interconnectedness of the world? Could you explain that?
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10:42 Do you see a difference between taking one’s own life and or engaging in assisted dying?
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11:07 How would you evaluate Buddhism in context of a perspective through the Abraham religions?
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11:55 There are those poems from Rumi. Do they speak to you?
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12:43 How can you see that the grass loves you?
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13:27 Yesterday you mentioned to not to seek external comfort. If you support someone in their suffering, what are you doing it for if not to comfort them?
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14:54 How would you respond to someone who sincerely believes that they perceive dead people and can speak for them?
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16:16 I have problems with hearing something and understanding it in that moment, then remembering and repeating it. Mostly it’s too much for me.
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17:18 How would you respond to a teenager who says that she hates her mother, that her mother doesn’t deserve any love or recognition, even though the mother does a lot for them?

This recording is from a public talk that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - gave in spring in Switzerland for the German language release of his book Bringing Meditation to Life. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
For more interesting information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on this topic? Book recommendations: 
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/our-books.html

These are questions and topics that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - reflects on. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
This episode was recorded during a zoom questions&responses session with a German-speaking audience.
For more interesting information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on this topic? Book recommendations:
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/our-books.html
Questions and Time Stamps:
1:20: I wanted to ask this question to AnShin and KenShin but I can also now ask it of GenRai. If you wouldn’t have become a monk or a nun which other job would have interested you?
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3: 08: Your introduction to Questions and Responses and for meditation sounds to me always as fresh as you would do it for the first time. How do you do it?
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4:50: Do you want to share something about the program of the promotion of the book that you have in Germany?
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9:29: I was reading recently about the 5 Remembrances and they seem pretty straight forward. I was wondering if you had anything to add or experiences with the 5 Remembrances?
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15:03: How is KenShin doing?
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16:10: What is your relation with “supernatural?”
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17:45: Do you think that a change of opinion is connected with age or aging?
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19:05: Would you be willing to share about humor and what you think about it?
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20:38: What are some tangible ways that you incorporate your practice into daily life?
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27:34: How do you work with resentments when they come up?
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30:09: Sometimes I hear something that is meant “Buddhist psychology”. What do you know about this?
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31:43: Could you imagine situations where emotionality is important to have?
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33:56: I am interested to get more information about your disappointment about when a friend just does not connect anymore with you? 
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36:12: I am just wondering about the name “AnGyo” and the red scarves.. What do those mean?

These are questions and topics that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - reflects on. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
This episode was recorded during a zoom questions&responses session with a German-speaking audience.
For more interesting information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on this topic? Book recommendations:
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/our-books.html
Questions and Time Stamps:
1:30 In which way are your father and your mother present in your life now, if they are present?
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3:58 During sitting meditation, is it important to consciously slow down my breathing or do I just stay with whatever breathing pattern is natural at that time?
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5:58 Would you share something about your experience of discipline?
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8:16 This morning when you gave instructions for sitting meditation you said that it was best to not wear shoes and if it was cold to not wear socks. How come? 
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10:16 When does discipline lead to feeling overwhelmed and tightness?
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10:50 What your saying is, if I am not enjoying, for instance getting up very early in the morning and getting on with my day and I’d rather be in bed because I don't’ like doing that, that’s not discipline?
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14:40 When does discipline lead to more serenity and freedom?
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18:50 In my meditation practice I do experience on certain days I am busy with quite intense feelings which I usually reject internally and am fighting with it, and then I am not succeeding in meditating. What would you say about that?
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21:08 Do you sometimes experience situations when you keep yourself small?
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24:03 What are your thoughts on the idea of the value of looking or reflecting on the path?
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27:24 When bringing little children into the zendo, when does it get to the point where the disturbance gets to big and I need to interact?
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31:50 There is this saying that every response already exists in us. Do you have any idea how it comes that we are so deluded as humans that we don’t have access to it?
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34:21 I noticed lately that when I travel I become rigid and uptight. Is the response to that tension just to accept it or should I make an effort to change that and relax?
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40: 08 (In reference to what was shared in previous question) Why didn’t you just put the eyedrop in your eye?

These are questions and topics that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - reflects on. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
This episode was recorded during a zoom questions&responses session with a German-speaking audience.
For more interesting information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on this topic? Book recommendations:
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/our-books.html
Questions and Time Stamps:
1:18 What is the significance and meaning as well as the difference between sitting to the front and sitting to the back?
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3:18 From where I am sitting, I am noticing a design stitched into the back of your rakusu and everybody seems to have it who has a rakusu. What is it?
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4:11 What is most important for civilians to know about military veterans?
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6: 32 How do you know the point is where the breath comes in without thinking about it?
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7:40 Does Buddhism and/or you recognize the concept of evil? And, if so, what does it mean in that context for you and Buddhism?
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10:55 But one has to name things because otherwise the world wouldn’t function either, right?
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13:25 Does this retreat with veterans feel more familiar than other retreats?
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16:51 What is this ongoing joke about Bielefeld (city in Germany) existing or not existing?
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19:06 Talking about the relative and the absolute realm, where, if anywhere, does the ego play in the relative realm?
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21:44 If there was a death to the sense of self, would I then experience the absolute realm?
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28:27 My question is if you are either interacting or doing a retreat with police officers, in the relative realm, how would either work with them or encourage them to be non-violent?
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40:32 How can I use the tools that you give us to throw off this very oppressive and heavy weight of karmic doom?
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42:42 Do you have an idea how it comes  that for example my grandmother with age she now tells things about the war which she hasn’t done before?

These are questions and topics that Claude AnShin Thomas - fully ordained Zen Buddhist Monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition - reflects on. He reminds the listener of how to stay awake to life and how to understand more deeply the trappings of a deluded mind.
This episode was recorded during a zoom questions&responses session with a German-speaking audience.
For more interesting information: https://zaltho.org/
If you want to ask a question: info@zaltho.org
Want to read up on this topic? Book recommendations:
-       Bringing Meditation to Life - 108 Teachings on the Path of Zen Practice (Oakwood Publishing 2021)
-       AT HELL'S GATE - A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala Publications 2003)
https://zaltho.org/en/media/books.html
Questions and Time Stamps:
*1:40 I am noticing that I am have difficulties with recognition. I feel as if I need constant positive feedback for everything I do. How do I deal with it?
*7:34 You had mentioned another time that a friend of yours had cut off contact with you and you mentioned that you were probably “inconvenient for him.” How far is it the case that you also  consider that this might be completely about him?
 
*11:59 Do you feel lonely sometimes and if so, how do you deal with this feeling?
 
*14:44 I was wondering if you found any relationship between the relief of pain and sitting?
 
*18:15 How or where do you perceive the absolute realm compared to the relative realm?
 
*21:07 Do you feel like your monk's robe and appearance as a Japanese Zen Buddhist Monk distances you from ordinary people with whom you meet daily,  generating separation and distance between you and others?
 
*24:28 What do you think if I should do if I feel constant and permanent pain in my soul?
 
*29:21 If the emphasis is to wake up from our own suffering, then why don’t I just become a recluse and not deal with people and society?
 
*31: 29 When you say there is no soul, then all the other religions that believe in one wrong? And could one from a buddhist perspective say there is one-soul or one-mind?
 
*35:20 How important do you believe is it in interactions to also admire each other?
 
*36:30 Can you explain a little more of your thoughts on “bardo?’
 
*40:28 Can you describe when you have glimpsed the absolute realm and also when you have recognized it in other people and how you recognized it in other people?
 
*45:28 When in your life was the first time that you felt this burning desire for waking up?